Against the Giants: Liberation of Geoff

The Second Watchtower

Session 77

Continuing straight for three hours, the party of bold adventurers and their henchmen arrive at a chasm, spanning which is a rope bridge. On the other side, as the invisible & infravisioned scouts– Corvin and Sidni– soon discover, is another stone watchtower, this one mounted with a giant crossbow that pokes out from the battlements.

A mumbling Corvin climbs up the rugged walls, and spies two dark elves manning the crossbow: they can hear his mumbling, but can’t see him. Before they can do anything except look around with suspicion, Corvin uses his Ring of Spell-Storing and fires off a flurry of magic missiles, instantly killing one of the dark elves, and in the momentary confusion, he uses the ring again to turn himself back invisible.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the chasm, a dark elf riding a giant spider discovers the lurking party and attacks, sending a burst of magic missiles into Elgir before they realise there is any danger. Sidni, Ordoreth and Ungrid attack, injuring both members of the patrol, then Fuzzykins (Orodreth’s ‘familiar’) rips out the dark elf’s throat, leaving Elgir to finish off the spider.

On the tower, the dark elf spots the fight below and fires the crossbow, its spear-like bolt narrowly missing Xellos. Sidni, Xellos and Mim start across the bridge, determined to help Corvin– suspecting that he is probably in trouble, since the party is split and that is when things usually start to go wrong– they are struck by a lightning bolt that comes out of one of the arrow-slits in the tower; but everyone shakes off the worst and crosses the bridge, in time to meet several giant spiders!

On top of the tower, another dark elf joins the crossbow-wielder, but both are quickly slain by Corvin as he backstabs one, then slashes open the throat of the other, kicking him over the battlements, where he splats on the rocky ground. Back on the ground, Sidni slays a spider, but is struck by several magic missiles that spit forth from another arrow-slit. More fly out, striking Halmary, who shrugs the pain off and wounds a spider, leaving it for Sidni to finish off. Corvin throws down a rope for the others to climb up, but before Xellos and Mim can get to the rope, a sphere of darkness falls over them; Mim blindly finds and begins to climb the rope, while Xellos stumbles into a door and starts to hack at it with his mighty axe. Elgir kills the last spider, and the ground forces rush over to the walls of the tower, hugging it to avoid being hit, and quaffing potions to heal their wounds.

Phildor and Ungrid– being stuck on the other side– finally manage to cross the rope bridge. Poisoned bolts rain down, hitting Mim and Xellos, to little effect. Corvin spots a dark elf trying to sneak up on the party, and kills it with one shot. Then he is attacks by a mirror imaged dark elf who comes out of the trap door in the roof: he wounds the thief, but is wounded in turn, and as Mim climbs up, the dwarf takes a swing too, removing the final image. Below, the last ground-level dark elf falls to the combined blows of Xellos and Sidni.

On top of the tower, the dark elf suddenly grapples Corvin and takes to the air! As they fly above the tower, Sidni– foolishly, bravely?– shoots at the dark elf with a poisoned arrow– there is an even chance of hitting both– and luckily the arrow hits true, and better yet, the dark elf is slain! Corvin, unfortunately, plummets, but he rolls with the landing and manages to suffer only a few cuts and bruises as he comes to rest at the explorer’s feet.

They loot the tower and decide to spend the night there, to rest and heal.